By Our Reporter
Shillong, Oct 22: Pacer Chengkam Sangma produced an excellent 3/19 with the ball but Meghalaya were still beaten by Kerala by 5 wickets in their last and final Group C match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament in Mohali on Saturday.
Kerala were chasing 101 for victory when Chengkam dismissed the first three batters, which included Indian international Sanju Samson for 4.
Indian Premier League star Sachin Baby was out to Dippu Ch Sangma (1/4) while Chirag Khurana took 1/25 but Kerala cruised to victory with 7.4 overs to spare.
Earlier, Meghalaya won the toss and batted first but were restricted to 100/8 in their 20 overs. The top scorer was Lerry Sangma (20), with impact player (substitute) Kishan Lyngdoh contributing 19. Skipper Punit Bisht hit 18 and Raj Biswa 15, though none of these batters were able to get a really big score.
Meghalaya thus ended the tournament with two wins – against Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh – and five defeats against some of the top teams in the country.
Women’s T20 Trophy
Meghalaya lost their last Group A match in the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy in Bangalore by 62 runs to Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.
Batting first, UP struck 146/3 to which Meghalaya responded with 84/9 in their allotted 20 overs. One wicket each was claimed by Rubi Chettri (1/22), Debasmita Dutta (1/27) and Daiaka Warjri (1/32) but these were not enough to slow down a rampant UP.
In the chase, Anita Lodhi struck four fours in a 15-ball innings of 21 and there were other contributions of 19 by Dutta, 11 by Vaincy Chaudhary and 10 by Sejal Raut but UP kept chipping away with wickets and Meghalaya were not able to get close to the imposing target.
Meghalaya thus ended the tournament with one victory – against Nagaland.
